HIS ‘Flames and fear on the farms’ controlling foot

8/13/2019 HIS Flames and fear on the farms controlling foot

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Institute of Historical Research 2004. Historical Research, vol. 77, no. 198 (November 2004)Published by Blackwell Publishing Ltd., 9600 Garsington Road, Oxford, OX4 2DQ, UK and 350 Main Street, Malden, MA 02148, USA.

Blackwell Publishing, Ltd.Oxford, UKHISRHistorical Research0950-3471 2004 Institute of Historical Research

November 2004774Original Article

Controlling foot and mouth disease in Britain, 18922001Controlling foot and mouth disease in Britain, 18922001

Flames and fear on the farms: controlling foot

and mouth disease in Britain, 18922001*

Abigail Woods

Wellcome Centre for the History of Medicine, Centre for the History of Science,Technology and Medicine, University of Manchester

Abstract

For over a century, the British government has pursued a policy of national

freedom from foot and mouth disease (F.M.D.), a highly contagious disease ofcloven-footed animals. One of the cornerstones of this policy was the slaughterof infected animals. However, on several occasions most notably in 2001 slaughter struggled to contain F.M.D., and provoked widespread criticism andcalls for policy change. Drawing upon a range of previously unexamined sources,this article examines the history of F.M.D. in Britain, in an attempt to explain

the twenty-first-century persistence of a Victorian disease control policy.

The 2001 British epidemic of foot and mouth disease (F.M.D.) was oneof the most devastating on record. Lasting seven and a half months, it ledto the death of approximately ten million animals.

1

Normal farmingpractices and exports of livestock and agricultural produce were severelycurtailed for nearly a year, and rural businesses suffered major losses as aresult of government advice to stay away from the infected countryside.In total, the epidemic cost the British economy 8 billion, although itsadverse effect upon the social lives and psychological well-being of ruralinhabitants is impossible to quantify.

Responsibility for managing F.M.D. lay with the Ministry of Agriculture,Fisheries and Food (M.A.F.F.), which was reconstituted during theepidemic as the Department of the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs(D.E.F.R.A.). On learning of the appearance of F.M.D., M.A.F.F. officials

* The author is grateful to the Wellcome Trust for generously funding the work that led tothis article, and to Professor John Pickstone, for his invaluable input. Versions of this articlewere presented at the Contemporary British History seminar, Institute of Historical Research,at the Wellcome Trust Centre for the History of Medicine, University College London and atthe Centre for the History of Science, Technology and Medicine, University of Manchester,and in all cases the author received valuable advice. The article was runner up in the IHRsPollard Prize for the Autumn term 20012.

1

This figure includes animals slaughtered under the governments welfare scheme, whichwas intended to relieve the suffering of animals trapped in unsuitable accommodation bylivestock movement restrictions (10 million animals were slaughtered in FMD cull, DailyTelegraph

, 23 Jan. 2002 (5 March 2004)).


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Institute of Historical Research 2004.

Controlling foot and mouth disease in Britain, 18922001 521

ordered the slaughter of diseased animals and their healthy contacts, andbanned the movement and marketing of livestock. These measures failedto restrict the spread of the virus, and as the crisis deepened, the government

began to consider an alternative control policy, vaccination. It eventuallyrejected this move, citing fears over the reliability of vaccination and theinternational trading penalties associated with its use. Instead, it adopteda contiguous cull policy, proposed by epidemiologists, which required theslaughter of all susceptible animals within a three kilometre radius of aconfirmed case. This policy, and the coercive methods employed byM.A.F.F. employees, prompted an outcry, and the debate still rages overwhether it was in fact responsible for the epidemics decline.

2

The events of 2001 spawned numerous enquiries at local, national and

European Union level, all of which proved critical of M.A.F.F./D.E.F.R.A.shandling of the epidemic.

3

They also attracted the scrutiny of academicsfrom a range of different fields. Several authors evaluated and rejected thegovernments key claims that an intensified slaughter policy representedthe cheapest method of controlling F.M.D., and that vaccination was ascientifically unreliable method of control.

4

Others highlighted the needto consider the cultural and ethical characteristics of F.M.D. control andits social and psychological impacts.

5

While extremely valuable, thesestudies have not considered one important dimension of M.A.F.F./

D.E.F.R.A.s approach to F.M.D. control: its historical basis. The policyof controlling F.M.D. by means of slaughter and trade restrictions datedfrom the late nineteenth century, and received frequent applicationduring the first two-thirds of the twentieth century whenever F.M.D.invaded Britain.

6

When the disease reappeared in 2001, after thirty-fiveyears in which Britain had suffered only one outbreak (on the Isle ofWight in 1981), farmers and M.A.F.F. officials still accepted withoutquestion the need to slaughter infected and potentially infected livestock.

2

I. Anderson, FMD 2001: Lessons to be Learned Enquiry Report

(2002).

3

Anderson; National Audit Office, Report upon the 2001 FMD Outbreak

(2002); The Cumbria FMDInquiry Report

(Carlisle, 2002); Crisis and Opportunity: Devon Foot and Mouth Inquiry 2001

(Tiverton,2002); Royal Society, Infectious Diseases in Livestock

(2002); European Parliament, Report on Measuresto Control Foot

and Mouth Disease in the European Union in 2001

(2002) (4 March2004).

4

P. Midmore, The 2001 foot and mouth outbreak: economic arguments against an extendedcull (2001) (4 March 2004); D.Campbell and R. Lee, Carnage by computer: the blackboard economics of the 2001 footand mouth epidemic, Social and Legal Studies

, xii (2003), 42559; P. Sutmoller and others,Control and eradication of foot-and-mouth disease, Virus Research

, xci (2003), 10144.

5

B. Mepham, Foot and mouth disease and British agriculture: ethics in a crisis, Jour.Agricultural and Environmental Ethics

, xiv (2001), 3423; M. Mort and others, The health andsocial consequences of the 2001 foot and mouth epidemic in north Cumbria (2003)(4 March 2004).

6

Animal Health, a Centenary, 18651965

(Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food: AnimalHealth Division, 1965) (hereafter Animal Health

), pp. 13451.


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522 Controlling foot and mouth disease in Britain, 18922001

It is unusual, in the history of infectious disease control, for a singlepolicy to have endured for over a century. Twentieth-century historiansof F.M.D. felt that the longevity of the governments policy required

little explanation: it represented the natural and self-evident response toa scientifically defined disease problem, and it worked far better than theavailable alternatives.

7

However, this authors recent work upon theemergence of late-nineteenth-century F.M.D. control policy sheds doubtupon this conclusion, revealing that legislative measures were notobvious, necessary or scientific, and were for many years the subject ofwidespread controversy.

8

The recent findings of medical historians alsoraise questions over the twenty-first-century persistence of a Victoriandisease control policy. Authors have argued that responses to disease are

historically contingent and can only be fully understood in relation totheir social, economic, political, cultural, professional and geographicalcontexts.

9

Why, therefore, did dramatic twentieth-century shifts in thestructure, practices and politics of agriculture, in the role and status of theveterinary profession, in the nature of the international meat and livestocktrade, and in the methods available for F.M.D. control, not inspire amovement away from the traditional policy?

This article examines how and why the British policy of F.M.D. controlby slaughter endured throughout the twentieth century, and reveals that

F.M.D. historians are mistaken in assuming that it always worked and wastherefore accepted by all but the ignorant and self-interested. For whilethis measure often stamped out F.M.D. outbreaks quickly and cheaply,on occasions it struggled to contain the disease and provoked justifiedcriticism. The survival of the policy is attributed here to the activities ofthe British agricultural authorities and their supporters, who remainedcommitted to an ideal of national freedom from F.M.D. and believed thatthe cheapest, most effective route to this goal lay in stamping out germs.

Repeatedly, throughout the first two-thirds of the twentieth century,

M.A.F.F. (and its predecessor M.A.F.)

10

scrutinized and adjusted thetraditional policy to take account of changing circumstances. This article

7

Animal Health

; F. Floud, The Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries

(1927), pp. 6475; FMD,

Veterinary Record

, 4 March 1976, pp. 1845.

8

A. Woods, The construction of an animal plague: foot and mouth disease in 19th-centuryBritain, Social History of Medicine

, xvii (2004), 2339.

9

Examples include C. E. Rosenberg, Framing disease and Explaining epidemics, in C. E.Rosenberg, Explaining Epidemics and Other Studies in the History of Medicine

(Cambridge, 1992),pp. 293318; A. Hardy, The Epidemic Streets: Infectious Disease and the Rise of Preventive Medicine,18561900

(Oxford, 1993); P. Baldwin, Contagion and the State in Europe, 18301930

(Cambridge,

1999); L. Bryder, We shall not find salvation in inoculation: BCG vaccination inScandinavia, Britain and the USA, 192160, Social Science and Medicine

, xlix (1999), 115767;G. Mooney, Public health versus private practice: the contested development of compulsoryinfectious disease notification in late-19th century Britain, Bull. Hist. Medicine

, lxxiii (1999),23867.

10

The Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries (formerly the Board of Agriculture and Fisheries)was formed in 1919. In 1955, it merged with the Ministry of Food to become M.A.F.F.


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contends that, as a result of its actions, slaughter remained a rational although not the only or the obvious response to F.M.D. But during thelate twentieth century, officials failed to take account of shifting trading and

farming practices that offered new opportunities for F.M.D. reinvasion andspread, to consider new scientific advances that made F.M.D. vaccinationan increasingly feasible control method, or to realize how F.M.D. wouldimpact upon the burgeoning tourist industry. Consequently, its traditionalcontrol policy quickly became outdated, and by 2001 had ceased to makesense, with devastating consequences for the nation.

11

Modern veterinary texts describe foot and mouth disease as a highlycontagious, acute viral disease of cloven-footed animals. Symptoms

include lameness, excessive salivation, a decline in appetite and reducedmilk production. The severity of symptoms varies according to thespecies, breed and age of animal affected and the strain of infecting virus.Fatalities are generally rare, except in young and ailing livestock.However, on recovery, animals commonly exhibit costly, long-termreductions in productivity. F.M.D. is also one of the most infectiousdiseases known. It may spread directly between infected and susceptibleanimals, and also indirectly by many different routes.

12

It has been described elsewhere how this low-mortality animal disease

which posed no threat to the publics health came to be regarded as oneof the worlds worst animal plagues.

13

In brief, following its 1839appearance in Britain, F.M.D. spread rapidly and soon became endemic.For many years, farmers and the state paid little attention to the disease.However, following the 18657 epidemic of cattle plague, a highlycontagious and fatal ailment which was eventually stamped out by meansof slaughter and livestock movement restrictions, the government assumedincreasing responsibility for the control of other contagious animaldiseases. In 1869, parliament passed a new law restricting the movement

and marketing of F.M.D.-infected animals, and this was extended thefollowing decade to include all livestock within the vicinity of F.M.D.outbreaks. Meanwhile, increasingly stringent controls were placed uponthe importation of livestock from F.M.D.-infected nations. This legislationproved extremely controversial. Its supporters argued that F.M.D. was acostly, dangerous disease, and that in the absence of controls it wouldcontinue to cause intermittent epidemics which damaged British meatand milk production. Opponents claimed that F.M.D. was only a milddisease a not unfounded assertion given the variable symptoms shown

11

Much of this article is drawn from A. Woods, Foot and mouth disease in 20th centuryBritain: science, policy and the veterinary profession (unpublished University of ManchesterPh.D. thesis, 2001).

12

O. Radostits and others, Veterinary Medicine: a Textbook of the Diseases of Cattle, Sheep, Pigs,Goats and Horses

(8th edn., 1994), pp. 96571.

13

Woods, Construction of an animal plague.


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by different types of stock and that in disrupting trade, control measureswould prove more costly than the disease itself. In time, however, they toobegan to fear the appearance of F.M.D. and to call for more effective

controls, largely because existing measures interfered considerably with theirdaily lives and businesses while failing to prevent infection.In 1884, parliament banned all livestock imports from F.M.D.-infected

nations. Two years later, the disease disappeared from Britain for the first timesince 1839. This celebrated event proved that F.M.D. could be eliminatedunder a universal, compulsory set of measures imposed by central government.However, sporadic outbreaks continued in subsequent years as importedgoods carried the F.M.D. virus into Britain. Maintaining national freedomfrom F.M.D. became a major preoccupation of the British agricultural

authorities, and officials devoted considerable time and resources to eliminatingoutbreaks and discovering the routes by which the virus entered Britain.

It was within this context that leading aristocratic agriculturalists proposedthe slaughter of infected stock. This measure, they claimed, would stampout F.M.D. more quickly than the existing policy of isolation, as itprevented animals from manufacturing and spreading the virus. Althoughnot widely supported, slaughter first became a policy option in 1892, andwas applied initially on a case-by-case basis at the discretion of the chiefveterinary officer (C.V.O.). However, as relatively F.M.D.-free nations

such as Australia, New Zealand and the U.S.A. followed Britainsexample in restricting the importation of livestock from infectedcountries, wealthy British exporters of pedigree livestock began to pressfor its more frequent application. Under Stuart Stockman, C.V.O. 190526, slaughter became a policy of choice. Few challenged its applicationduring the nineteen-hundreds and nineteen-tens, when infrequentF.M.D. outbreaks were rapidly eliminated. However, attitudes changedconsiderably during 1922, when the policy received its first real test.

In spring 1922, a substantial F.M.D. epidemic took hold in England andScotland. Like its 2001 counterpart, it resulted from the rapid movementof infected animals through markets, and was already widespread by thetime of its discovery. From the outset, M.A.F.s short-staffed, poorlyequipped veterinary department struggled to contain the infection, andthere were lengthy delays in the diagnosis, slaughter and disposal ofinfected stock. The epidemic lasted eight months and comprised 1,140 separateF.M.D. outbreaks, which led to the slaughter of an unprecedented 56,000livestock at a cost of 1.25 million in compensation. After only twelve

months respite, F.M.D. flared up again. This time, delays in the executionof the control policy were even more marked. During the nine-month19234 epidemic, there were 3,100 F.M.D. outbreaks, the highestnumber recorded in any British epidemic. Nearly 300,000 livestock wereslaughtered, and the compensation bill reached 3.3 million. Cheshire,with 1,385 outbreaks, bore the brunt of the disease: 50,000 dairy cattle


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were culled, amounting to one-third of the entire Cheshire herd. In theworst affected areas up to sixty per cent of farms were emptied oflivestock.

14

Throughout the 19224 epidemics, Stockman remained convinced thatslaughter was the only method capable of restoring Britain to the desiredstate of F.M.D.-freedom. He agreed to exempt several hundred valuablepedigree animals on account of their national value, but ordered all otherinfected animals to be slaughtered and burned or buried.

15

His policyattracted considerable criticism as disease incidence rose and thousands offarmers from all over Britain found themselves confined to empty farms,their lifes work destroyed. Some claimed that slaughter was barbaric,costly and also unnecessary, as infected animals would soon recover from

F.M.D. Others saw slaughter as a good thing in principle, but becameincreasingly uneasy at its failure to work in practice. As it had never beenapplied before to the control of a raging epidemic, even advocates of theslaughter could not be confident of its success. Critics therefore occupiedextremely strong ground: as the crises deepened, many called for a returnto the older policy of isolating sick animals, which had contributed to theelimination of endemic F.M.D. during the mid eighteen-eighties.

16

Stockman realized that his preferred policy could not succeed withoutthe support of farmers, as it required them to comply with trade

restrictions, to report early disease symptoms, to refrain from minglingwith their peers and to minimize movements on and off the farm.

17

Hetherefore waged a public relations campaign to convince farmers of itsmerits. In statements to the press and speeches at farmers meetings, heand his M.A.F. colleagues emphasized the benefits of national freedomfrom F.M.D. and claimed that slaughter was the fastest and cheapestmeans of achieving this goal. Although few infected animals diednaturally from F.M.D., they manufactured large quantities of the highlycontagious F.M.D. virus, and on recovery suffered costly, long-term

problems such as lameness, infertility and mastitis. These features meantthat, in the absence of a slaughter policy, F.M.D. would spread rapidlythroughout the nation and inflict enormous losses upon national meatand milk production. It would also impede exports of pedigree stock toF.M.D.-free nations, worth around 700,000 a year. While isolation hadworked in past years, it was no longer viable, because recent increasesin the scale and frequency of livestock movements offered newopportunities for the disease to spread. Any return to isolation would

14

Annual Report of Proceedings under the Diseases of Animals Acts, 1922, 1923 and 1924

(19235).

15

The National Archives of the U.K.: Public Record Office, MAF 35/162, 167, Stockmanevidence to 1922 and 1924 committees of enquiry into F.M.D.

16

T.N.A.: P.R.O., MAF 35/159, 160, 162, 165, witness evidence to 1922 and 1924committees of enquiry into F.M.D; Cheshire Observer

and Crewe Chronicle

, Dec. 1923Jan. 1924,

passim

.

17

T.N.A.: P.R.O., MAF 35/164, M.A.F. leaflet, Advice to farmers, 31 Dec. 1923.


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lengthen the course of the epidemic and also prove costly to farmers, whowould not receive compensation for isolated stock.

18

Stockman went on to claim that in the years since slaughter had been

introduced, the nation had experienced an annual average of only seventeendisease outbreaks, whereas in the later nineteenth century, annual outbreaksnumbered 1,730. He compared the British F.M.D. situation favourably tothat of France, Holland and Belgium, where disease was endemic and anisolation policy in force. He held farmers and dealers responsible forF.M.D. spread. Some had deliberately concealed the appearance of infection;others had failed to assist M.A.F. veterinarians charged with tracing thespread of disease. Many more had refused to take rudimentary precautionsagainst the virus, for example those farmers who had insisted upon

attending public meetings to denounce the slaughter policy. Stockmanreminded farmers that in ridding Britain of F.M.D., slaughter wasfulfilling a national good and that it was their duty to comply. He lateralleged that in forcing him to defend his actions, critics of the slaughterhad diverted him from his true line of work, the elimination of disease.

19

Stockman received valuable support from sympathetic leaders of severalagricultural organizations: the upper-class Royal Agricultural Society(R.A.S.), the politically active Chambers of Agriculture, and the NationalFarmers Union (N.F.U.), a comparatively young body made up of tenant

farmers.

20

All acted at least partly out of self-interest. Pedigree breedersand exporters were particularly well represented in the Chambers and theR.A.S., and encouraged the slaughter of ordinary stock so that their animalsmight escape infection and embark upon lucrative journeys overseas. TheN.F.U. consisted of tenant farmers who lacked parliamentary influence. Itsleaders sought to enhance its profile by aiding M.A.F. directly, a strategythat came to full fruition during and after the Second World War, when itgained the right to regular consultation over agricultural subsidy levels.

21

While many farmers were undoubtedly convinced by Stockmans

rhetoric, complaints about the slaughter policy continued at grass-rootslevel. Many critics blamed the failure of the slaughter policy upon theincompetence of M.A.F. veterinarians who had misdiagnosed F.M.D.,

18

M.A.F. statements in The Times

, 30 Jan. 1922, p. 10, 22 Feb. 1922, p. 9 and 5 Nov. 1923,p. 21; Warning to stock owners, The Times

, 29 Sept. 1923, p. 7; FMD: visit of Sir StuartStockman, Crewe Chronicle

, 10 Nov. 1923, p. 7.

19

T.N.A.: P.R.O., MAF 35/160, official evidence to 1922 committee of enquiry; T.N.A.:P.R.O., MAF 35/164, 165, Stockman evidence to 1924 committee of enquiry.

20

Slaughter: Central and Associated Chambers of Agriculture, The Times

, 1 Feb. 1922, p.

7; NFU support, The Time

s, 6 Feb. 1922, p. 7; NFU resolutions, The Times

, 10 Jan. 1924,p. 14; University of Reading, Rural History Centre, Royal Agricultural Society councilminutes, 12 Dec. 1923.

21

For details of the N.F.U.s historical relationship with M.A.F.(F.), see P. Self and H. Storing,

The State and the Farmer

(Berkeley, Calif., 1963); G. Cox, P. Lowe and M. Winter, The originsand early development of the NFU, Agricultural History Rev.

, xxxix (1991), 3047; M. Smith,

The Politics of Agricultural Support in Britain

(Aldershot, 1990).


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conveyed the virus between farms and delayed in the diagnosis, slaughterand disposal of infected animals. Several livestock owners whose animalshad practically recovered by the time the slaughter team arrived claimed

that in their experience F.M.D. was only a mild disease and that slaughterinflicted more harm than good.22Cheshire victims of the disease organizedin resistance to the slaughter policy and held numerous meetings whichcalled for a return to isolation. Their persistence forced Stockman to thenegotiating table, and for a time, the future of the slaughter policy inCheshire hung in balance. However, local spokesmen proved no matchfor Stockmans strategic political manoeuvrings and achieved only aminor concession the exemption of several dairy stock from slaughter.23

Elsewhere in the country, farming critics made little headway. They had

neither economic power nor political weight, and were ignored andmarginalized by their leaders.24

Once F.M.D. incidence began to fall, many who had wavered in theirsupport for slaughter became convinced of its merits and the controversyslowly died away. The policy received an additional boost from twodepartmental committees of enquiry into the epidemics, which wereheaded by landowner and cattle breeder Captain Ernest Pretyman. LikeStockman, committee members assumed the necessity of returning Britainto a state of F.M.D.-freedom. They believed that only slaughter could

achieve this goal, and attributed the problems encountered in 19224 tothe inefficient manner in which it had been executed. Consequently, theypaid little heed to witnesses claims that in certain cases, isolation wouldhave proved a more appropriate response, and focused their efforts uponimproving the implementation of the existing policy, most notably byincreasing its central and compulsory nature.25 Their reports seeminglyvindicated Stockmans stand, and deprived critics of any authority. Theyalso set the seal on the three-year transformation of slaughter from novel,untested control method to familiar and successful policy.

In the years that followed, F.M.D. incidence remained high, althoughthere was no repeat of the 19224 epidemics or of the controversy thathad surrounded them. M.A.F. turned to slaughter each time the diseaseappeared, and policy execution increased in efficiency as staff becamemore practised and the Pretyman committees recommendations enteredlaw. At intervals, elderly farmers complained that F.M.D. was but a mild

22 T.N.A.: P.R.O., MAF 35/159, 160, 162, 165, witness evidence to 1922 and 1924committees of enquiry into F.M.D.

23 Cheshire Observerand Crewe Chronicle, Dec. 1923Jan. 1924,passim.24 At the height of the 19234 epidemic, Harry German, president of the N.F.U. livestock

committee reportedly told branches not to send up resolutions to HQ advocating that thegovernment should be asked to stop their policy of slaughtering (Daily Mail, 17 Dec. 1923, p. 9).

25 T.N.A.: P.R.O., MAF 35/162, pp. 98, 148, verbatim report of 1922 committee; T.N.A.:P.R.O., MAF 35/165, day 2, pp. 89, Stockman evidence to 1924 committee of enquiry intoF.M.D.; Report of the 1922 Departmental Committee on F.M.D.[Cmd. 1784], H.C. (1923), ii. 579;Report of the 1924 Departmental Committee on F.M.D.[Cmd. 2350], H.C. (19245), xiii. 225.


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disease, and that isolation, not slaughter should form the basis of governmentpolicy. However, for the most part, official spokesmen and farmersorganizations forestalled such criticisms by advertizing repeatedly the

merits of slaughter. Moreover, to a new generation of livestock ownerswho had never known endemic F.M.D., and only ever equated itsappearance with slaughter, such sentiments seemed incredible and failedto garner widespread support.26

On the continent, where F.M.D. was endemic, a British-style slaughterpolicy appeared costly and also futile, since it was practically impossibleto prevent infection re-invading across land borders.27 Consequently,governments pursued F.M.D. control rather than F.M.D.-freedom. They

viewed immunization as the most promising means of achieving this goal,and directed scientists to initiate relevant enquiries. During the firstdecade of the twentieth century, German bacteriologist, FriederichLoeffler, discovered how to produce F.M.D. serum. Other scientistssubsequently elaborated upon his method of production, and by thenineteen-twenties it was used widely in the field. Although it producedonly short-lived resistance to infection, serum minimized the severity ofdisease symptoms and so reduced the associated losses in productivity.28

In Britain, however, M.A.F.s faith in slaughter and import restrictions

caused it to dismiss outright the prospect of F.M.D. immunization. Itsattitude had a significant impact upon the early course of F.M.D. researchin Britain. Before the nineteen-twenties, scientific enquiries into F.M.D.were short-lived and unsuccessful, largely because M.A.F. refused to allowresearch on mainland Britain.29However, as the slaughter policy fell intodisrepute during the 19224 epidemics, critics increasingly pressed Stockmanto sponsor more substantial investigations into the disease. Prominentamong them was Walter Morley Fletcher, the secretary of the MedicalResearch Council (M.R.C.), a government-funded body that was

extremely influential in the development of medical science. Like manyof his medical peers, Fletcher was optimistic that laboratory research into

26 Slaughter: NFU statement, The Times, 15 Apr. 1926, p. 16; Responsibility of the stockowner, The Times, 9 Jan. 1928, p. 20; NFU notice, The Times, 5 Nov. 1928, p. 12; StanleyBaldwin speech, The Times, 24 May 1929, p. 8; Report, Agricultural Ministry, The Times,1 Aug. 1930, p. 6; Vindication of Britains slaughter measures, Daily Mail, 9 Nov. 1937, p.20; Mr T Williams, speech, The Times, 12 Mar. 1941, p. 2.

27 Baldwin discusses the influence of geography upon disease control policies.28 Pirbright, Animal Virus Research Institute (hereafter A.V.R.I.), F.M.D. research

committee paper 411, 1939/40, H. Skinner, Passive immunisation against FMD; H. P.Schmiedebach, The Prussian state and microbiological research, in 100 Years of Virology: theBirth and Growth of a Discipline, ed. C. Calisher and M. Horzineck (Austria, 1999), pp. 924;W. Wittmann, The legacy of Friedrich Loeffler, in Calisher and Horzineck, pp. 2542.

29 Report of the Departmental Committee appointed to inquire into FMD[Cd. 7270], H. C. (1914),xii. 139; A.V.R.I., F.M.D. research committee paper 2, 1924, Report on the 1920 FMDcommittee.


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F.M.D. would give rise to a vaccine or serum with which to control thedisease.30

Stockman refused to submit to such pressure. He argued that the highly

contagious F.M.D. could easily escape from the laboratory, and that evenif contained successfully, its presence within Britain would cause F.M.D.-free nations to reject British livestock exports. Research was not onlydangerous and injurious to trade, it was also unnecessary, as there alreadyexisted an effective method of control slaughter which could eliminatedisease completely. By contrast, serum treatment and vaccination couldonly limit viral spread, and as vaccines usually worked by inducing a mildcase of infection, they might actually encourage F.M.D. dissemination.Nor could research help to uncover the routes by which FMD entered

Britain; such information was best drawn from the experiments [that]have been going on before our eyes, in nature.31

Opinions similar to Stockmans held sway in other F.M.D.-free nationssuch as the U.S.A., Canada and Australia. As these countries rarely if everexperienced F.M.D., the contention that research costs outweighed thelikely benefits proved uncontroversial.32In Britain, however, the 19224epidemics stimulated a reassessment of the matter. The livestock death tolland rising compensation levels caused the Cabinet to seek medical adviceabout the desirability of F.M.D. research. At Fletchers suggestion, it

approached Sir William Leishmann, director-general of the Army MedicalServices, who argued that only laboratory investigations could providedefinite information upon which to base future control policy. On thebasis of his recommendations, M.A.F. formed, in the spring of 1924, aF.M.D. research committee made up of eminent doctors and veterinarians.It charged this body with discovering ways of making FMD less harmfulto Britain. Research began at a number of sites, including the M.R.C.sNational Institute of Medical Research, the Lister Institute and a newly-converted field station at Pirbright.33

30 T.N.A.: P.R.O., FD 1/4364, Fletcher correspondence, Jan. 1922; FMD, British Medical Jour.,19 Jan. 1924, p. 121; Editorial, Investigation into FMD, The Lancet, 8 March 1924, pp. 5045;letter of Drs. Peyton, Grace and Young, The Times, 7 Jan. 1924, p. 18; Obituary, Sir W. M. Fletcher,18731933, Royal Society Obituary Notices of Fellows, i (19325), 15363.

31 T.N.A.: P.R.O., MAF 35/165, Stockman evidence to 1924 committee of enquiry intoF.M.D.; T.N.A.: P.R.O., MAF 35/217, Stockman correspondence with Sir W. Leishman,7 Jan., 8 Feb. 1924.

32 The U.S.A. did not begin F.M.D. research until 1954, when a specialist laboratory openedon Plum Island. This move followed F.M.D. outbreaks in neighbouring Canada and Mexico.

Another likely motivating factor was the threat of hostile nations employing F.M.D. as abiological weapon (M. Machado, Aftosa: a Historical Survey of Foot and Mouth Disease and Inter-

American Relations(Albany, N.J., 1969)). In Australia, there was little interest in F.M.D. researchuntil the later 20th century (P. Scott, Levers and counterweights: a laboratory that failed toraise the world, Social Studies of Science, xxi (1991), 735).

33 T.N.A.: P.R.O., MAF 35/217, Cabinet committee minutes and Sir W. Leishmans report,19234; FMD, The Times, 29 Feb. 1924, p. 7.


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Despite Stockmans defeat, senior M.A.F. officials managed to gain aconsiderable degree of control over the direction, methods and goals ofF.M.D. research in Britain. They helped to select the members of the research

committee and ensured that the C.V.O. had a permanent seat. They reservedthe right to request specific investigations, stationed officials at Pirbright toensure the adequacy of viral containment measures and, citing fears of viralescape from the laboratory, caused the committee to reject all independentrequests to carry out F.M.D. research.34From this position of power, M.A.F.ensured that scientists activities intersected with its ideal of nationalF.M.D.-freedom and its principle of F.M.D. control by slaughter.

Under M.A.F.s direction scientists looked not for new methods ofF.M.D. control but for ways of improving the existing control policy. One

important focus was the discovery of routes by which F.M.D. invadedBritain. Scientists findings had direct relevance to F.M.D. control policyand could, in assisting the fight against disease invasion, render the debateupon internal F.M.D. controls superfluous.35Another significant researchtopic was F.M.D. serum. While on the continent, serum formed a firstline of defence against F.M.D., to C.V.O. John Kelland it was merely anadditional weapon in the armoury of the states warfare.36He hoped thatserum could protect at-risk animals located near to infected farms,37 andalso reduce F.M.D. importation, as the disease undoubtedly comes here

from abroad, and if . . . results could be put into operation abroad, thiscountry would reap the benefit.38Unfortunately, field trials during theearly nineteen-thirties gave unreliable results and were abandoned.39 Incomparison to these two lines of research, F.M.D. vaccination receivedlittle attention. The existence of the slaughter policy meant that M.A.F.attached little urgency to vaccine discovery, and so when early experimentsran into technical difficulties, scientists abandoned the field.40By contrast,on the continent, where serum had reduced the cost but not the frequencyof F.M.D. outbreaks, vaccine research proceeded apace.

While for M.A.F. making FMD less harmful meant using science toprevent the virus invading Britain, members of the general public heldvery different expectations. From their understanding of medical researchinto human diseases, many assumed that researchers sought a vaccine withwhich to replace slaughter. To discourage this line of thinking, M.A.F.

34 A.V.R.I., minutes of F.M.D. research committee meetings, 19246.35 Annual Report of Proceedings under the Diseases of Animals Acts: Report of the CVO, 1925

(1926), p. 17; Report of the CVO, 1928(1929), p. 17; Report of the CVO, 1932(1933), pp. 345; 1st-5th Progress Reports of the FMD Research Committee(192537).

36 Serum treatment in connection with FMD, Veterinary Record, 6 Dec. 1930, p. 1126.37 Annual Report of Proceedings under the Diseases of Animals Acts: Report of the CVO, 1931

(1932), p. 26.38 T.N.A.: P.R.O., MAF 35/226, Kelland to H. Dale, Dec. 1932.39 A.V.R.I., F.M.D. research committee meeting 5661 (2 Feb. 193121 July 1931); T.N.A.:

P.R.O., MAF 35/226, serum treatment: correspondence and memos, 19303.40 A.V.R.I., F.M.D. research committee meeting 1587 (8 Dec. 19258 May 1934).


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officials manipulated the release of scientific information into the publicdomain. One F.M.D. scientist, H. Skinner, later explained:

The word vaccine, you had to be very careful not to use it too much because

the fear was that if the public knew there was a vaccine available thered be aclamour for abandoning the stamping out policy, and the Ministry reallywouldnt stand for that. They knew that stamping out was the only thing, tostamp it out. Couldnt have people vaccinating animals against it.

M.A.F. forbade scientists to discuss their work or to publish results withoutthe permission of the Minister of Agriculture, a restriction which Skinnerviewed as necessary . . . to avoid false interpretation by those who lobbiedagainst the slaughter policy.41 Instead, results were presented in F.M.D.research committee progress reports, released in 1925, 1927, 1928, 1931 and

1937. These official publications emphasized repeatedly the many difficultiesinvolved in vaccine research and the poor prospects of success.42

M.A.F.s attitude towards F.M.D. vaccination changed dramatically in1938, on learning that German researchers had developed the firstworkable F.M.D. vaccine.43Two years earlier, as part of the contingencyplanning for war, the British governments committee of imperial defencehad examined the probability of Germanys engaging in biological warfareand concluded that F.M.D. was a likely weapon.44The C.V.O., DanielCabot, had dismissed such suggestions, believing it impossible for Germanscientists to develop the quantities of F.M.D. virus required for an attackwithout accidentally infecting their own livestock. Now, however, withthe discovery of a F.M.D. vaccine, Germany could protect its animalsagainst such an eventuality, and presented a new and dangerous threat toBritish agriculture.45

It fell to Cabot to plan the protection of British livestock. He realizedthat any attack would probably result in a widespread F.M.D. epidemic toolarge to control by slaughter alone. F.M.D. would quickly become endemicand British meat and milk production would fall. This was not simply aneconomic issue, as during wartime it would prove impossible to importreplacement supplies. The resulting drop in domestic consumption wouldseriously impact upon the health, morale and fighting ability of the Britishpeople. It was essential, therefore, to devise alternative methods of F.M.D.control. In effect, the biological warfare threat placed Britain in the sameposition as most European nations, in that a lack of control over viralinvasion made the pursuit of national F.M.D.-freedom impossible. Rather

41 A.V.R.I., H. Skinner, A note on the reporting of findings in the early years of FMDresearch (1994, unpublished); interview given by H. Skinner, 7 March 2000.

42 1st-5th Progress Reports of the F.M.D. Research Committee(192537).43 A.V.R.I., F.M.D. research committee paper 351 (2 June 1938) and 355 (30 June 1938).44 T.N.A.: P.R.O., MAF 35/231, report of sub-committee on biological warfare, March 1937.45 T.N.A.: P.R.O., MAF 35/231, Cabot memorandum, Apr. 1937, note by market division,

May 1937; T.N.A.: P.R.O., MAF 250/126, Cabot paper, 13 Nov. 1939.


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than stamping out F.M.D., Cabot sought to control its spread and to limitits clinical severity. This new goal led to the reorientation of BritishF.M.D. research along the lines of that pursued on the continent. Cabot

directed scientific resources to the production of serum, which was cheapand easy to prepare, and focused attention upon vaccine research for thefirst time in British history.46However, he had no intention of suspendingthe use of slaughter in outbreaks unconnected with biological warfare.His policy shift was simply an in extremisresponse to potential crisis.

In the event, Germany did not use biological weapons and Cabotsplans to defend the nation were not put into practice.47But British fearsof germ warfare did not end with Germanys defeat. The descending ironcurtain around Soviet-controlled countries in 1947, the 1950 Korean War

and the signing of the Warsaw Pact by Eastern Bloc European nations in1955 all marked the rise of a new and hostile power that was allegedlycapable of employing biological weapons against the West. Believing thatthe nation should be ready to defend itself against attack and to retaliatewith similar weapons, the post-war British government allocated largeresources to both defensive and offensive biological weapons research.48

It regarded F.M.D. research as a priority, and allocated huge sums for theextension of defensive and possibly offensive research into the disease atthe Pirbright field station, where all scientists were now based. 49Vaccine

research intensified and gave rise to numerous technical advances.50

Nevertheless, M.A.F. remained convinced that vaccines were suitableonly for use in an emergency. Although European nations increasinglyturned to strategic vaccination to reduce F.M.D. invasion across landborders, to protect valuable stock, to limit the spread of outbreaks and todampen down the volume of infection,51slaughter remained the crux ofBritish F.M.D. control policy.

46 T.N.A.: P.R.O., MAF 35/231, Cabot correspondence, May 1939; T.N.A., P.R.O., MAF250/126, memorandum, FMD: preparation of serum; A.V.R.I., F.M.D. research committeemeeting 134 (31 Oct. 1939).

47 German sources suggest that the secret service was indeed planning to attack Britain withthe F.M.D. virus (The Times, 12 March 2001, p. 6).

48 M. Dando, Biological Warfare in the 21st Century: Biotechnology and the Proliferation ofBiological Weapons(1994), p. 80; B. Balmer, The drift of biological weapons policy in the UK,194565, Jour. Strategic Studies, xx (1997), 11545, at pp. 11718; G. Carter and B. Balmer,Chemical and biological warfare and defence, 194590, in Cold War Hot Science: AppliedResearch in Britains Defence Laboratories, 194590, ed. R. Bud and P. Gummett (Amsterdam,1999), pp. 31118.

49 T.N.A.: P.R.O., DEFE 10/30, research on F.M.D., DRP/P (51) 62, 23 Aug. 1951;T.N.A.: P.R.O., WO 195/12458, research on F.M.D., 1951; T.N.A.: P.R.O., MAF 250/163,F.M.D. research committee, proposals for special virus research, 19512.

50 A.V.R.I., I. Galloway, Draft report on research progress, 193752; Sir W. Henderson,A Personal History of the Testing of FMD Vaccines in Cattle(Coventry, 1985).

51 Report of the Departmental Committee on FMD, 19524 [Cmd. 9214], pp. 1359, H.C.(19534), xiii. 561.


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During the Second World War and the Cold War, the Ministry of Defencekept secret from the general public its fears of biological warfare, whileM.A.F. continued to conceal progress in vaccine research and to claim

that there was no alternative to the slaughter policy. Consequently, fewquestioned the need for stamping out the disease until 1951, whenF.M.D. spread across the continent and invaded England. A total of 600outbreaks occurred during a twelve-month period, and led to theslaughter of 85,000 livestock, at a cost of 3 million in compensation.52

This was an exceptionally long epidemic, and for many months, slaughterseemed to make little progress against F.M.D. Simultaneously, the Britishpress published its first accounts of continental F.M.D. vaccination, thusadvertizing the availability of an alternative and reportedly successful

control policy.53

These circumstances left M.A.F.s policy of secrecy inshreds and gave rise to the public clamour for vaccination that officialshad long feared

British proponents of F.M.D. vaccination included practising veterinarians,journalists, members of the general public and farmers. Some had alwaysobjected to the slaughter policy; others had only tolerated it in themistaken belief that British scientists were striving to discover a vaccinewith which to replace it. They viewed slaughter as a barbaric andmedieval policy, a deplorable and abject confession of defeat. It is

Medicine Man stuff, a survival from the unscientific past.54

Vaccines, onthe other hand, seemed modern, scientific and humane. These parties feltthat under a vaccination policy, farmers would cease to suffer the periodicloss of thousands of animals and the cost of F.M.D. control woulddiminish. Influential upper-class livestock breeders, whose valuable pedigreeanimals had been exempt from the slaughter prior to 1924, hoped to vaccinateat will, thereby wresting control of F.M.D. from an undiscerning centralizedgovernment department and its one-size-fits-all policy.

As in 19224, M.A.F. officials feared that if not convinced of the merits

of slaughter, farmers would cease to comply. They therefore formulatedand publicized new arguments in its defence. First, they declaredvaccination more expensive than slaughter: to maintain complete nationalimmunity to F.M.D., veterinarians would have to inoculate all susceptibleanimals every four months, at an annual cost of 13 million. Bycomparison, over the previous twenty-five years slaughter had cost thegovernment an average of 176,000 a year in compensation. Second,they portrayed vaccination as a dangerous and ineffective technology. It

52 Animal Health Services Report, 1952(1953).53 Letter from Montevideo, Daily Telegraph, March 1952; Report from Denmark, Daily

Telegraph, 30 June 1952; W. D. Thomas, Danish cattle policy, Daily Telegraph, June 1952 (allfrom A.V.R.I., H. Skinner collection of newspaper clippings). Letter of J. T. Davies, The Times,5 May 1952, p. 7; FMD: France, The Times, 5 Sept. 1952, p. 5; T.N.A.: P.R.O., CAB 124/1562, Chapman Pincher, FMD, Daily Express, 13 Nov. 1952.

54 A.V.R.I., H. Skinner collection, Sunday Express, 15 June 1952.


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was useless in young animals, largely unsuccessful in pigs and sheep, andcaused immunity to only one of the three types of virus responsible fordisease. Vaccinated livestock took fourteen days to develop resistance to

F.M.D. During that period, and when resistance was declining, theycould potentially contract F.M.D. but show only mild clinical signs. Thisphenomenon of masking allowed F.M.D. to spread unnoticed, andcould also cause animals to become dangerous carriers of the virus. Theattainment of national F.M.D.-freedom a state essential for themaintenance of livestock exports was therefore impossible under apolicy of vaccination. Finally, by reference to international statistics ofF.M.D. incidence, M.A.F. officials claimed that Britain was far in advanceof vaccinating nations, and that its achievements were attributable to the

use of slaughter.Veterinary and farming leaders, scientists connected with F.M.D. research

and members of the funding body, the Agricultural Research Council,backed M.A.F.s claims and provided valuable, authoritative support againstcritics of the slaughter. However, calls for vaccination continued. Thenineteen-fifties were a time of unprecedented optimism and faith in science,and vaccines were widely celebrated as one of its most importantachievements. To advocates, F.M.D. vaccination was a modern, progressiveand certain method of disease control, which would put an end to the

social, economic and psychological hardships inflicted by the old-fashioned, outdated slaughter policy. They refused to accept M.A.F.sscientific arguments against vaccination, and found ridiculous its claimsthat vaccinating nations were inferior to Britain. They continued to pressfor a change in policy until it became apparent that slaughter had finallybrought the epidemic under control.55

While M.A.F.s arguments took little account of the cultural andpsychological aspects of F.M.D. control, on scientific and economicgrounds they were well-founded. The difference in F.M.D. incidence in

Britain and Europe naturally gave rise to different demands concerningvaccine safety and efficacy. Where F.M.D. was endemic, it was of littleconsequence if vaccines caused an occasional case of disease, whereas inBritain, this could precipitate a devastating epidemic.56 Also, becauseBritains livestock export trade was oriented towards the F.M.D.-freeDominions and the U.S.A., which refused to accept vaccinated animalsfor fear of masking, vaccination would prove more costly than inEuropean nations which had no such outlets for trade.

However, several of M.A.F.s claims went beyond the known facts,

suggesting that officials intentionally painted an overly-bleak picture of

55 Above three paragraphs drawn from A.V.R.I., H. Skinner collection.56 A.V.R.I., Progress report, 19445; A.V.R.I., F.M.D. research committee meeting (25

March 1946); A.V.R.I., I. Galloway, Draft report on research progress, 193752; A.V.R.I.,H. Skinner, The British contribution to research on FMD prior to 1950, sect. 10.


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vaccination in order to rally support for slaughter.57 The director ofPirbright, Ian Galloway, wrote privately to M.A.F. upon this matter,complaining,

Many of the arguments put up against vaccination are not sound or based onscientific evidence. This has no doubt given the impression that any sort ofargument is good enough to use against vaccination as a policy, and above all,to prevent any suggestions that the slaughter policy should be abandoned.58

The M.A.F.-appointed departmental committee of enquiry into the19512 F.M.D. epidemic thought similarly. After learning from foreignF.M.D. scientists that expert opinion was divided upon the efficacy ofvaccines in different species, the duration of immunity and the risks ofmasking, it concluded that M.A.F. had overstated the dangers involved. 59

Unlike M.A.F., committee members assumed that vaccination was theultimate tool in F.M.D. control.60Although they conceded that, at present,slaughter was the only method suitable for use in Britain, their reportcontained a detailed discussion of possible vaccination strategies. It advisedthat, subject to future technical advances, M.A.F. should apply ring vaccinationin conjunction with slaughter during major F.M.D. epidemics.61

Officials were unimpressed by the committees conclusions. SecretaryW. Tame complained,

The CVOs view is that circumstances would have to be much worse thananything so far experienced this century before he could agree to vaccinate. Thecommittees recommendations may, however, mean that if we get anotherepidemic like that of 1951/52 there will be strong pressure on the Ministry fromcertain quarters to agree to vaccination.62

In fact, the committees detailed review of vaccination attracted littleattention. This was partly because M.A.F.s press release skirted aroundthe vaccination issue while emphasizing the committees conclusion thatslaughter was currently the best method of F.M.D. control. Also, the

report did not appear until 1954, by which time F.M.D. incidence wasextremely low and public interest in the earlier epidemic had died away.63

The British governments F.M.D. control policy next came under seriousscrutiny in 1967, during one of the most devastating epidemics of the

57 T.N.A.: P.R.O., MAF 35/866, George Villiers, The case for inoculation as an aid to thefight against FMD, 1952.

58 T.N.A.: P.R.O., MAF 35/866, Galloway correspondence, 26 June 1952.59 T.N.A.: P.R.O., MAF 387/18, Gowers committee, 17th meeting, 4 Feb. 1953; T.N.A.:

P.RO., MAF 387/28, Gowers committee, 26th and 27th meetings, Sept. 1953; Report of theDepartmental Committee on FMD, 19524, pp. 2135, 51.

60 Report of the Departmental Committee on FMD, 19524, p. 41.61 Report of the Departmental Committee on FMD, 19524, pp. 2135, 4157, 1359.62 T.N.A.: P.R.O., MAF 35/872, submission to the minister, 14 March 1955.63 M.A.F. press release, The Times, 29 July 1954, p. 4;Animal Health Services Report, 1953 and

1954(1954, 1955).


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twentieth century. Between October 1967 and June 1968, there were2,228 F.M.D. outbreaks, of which ninety-four per cent occurred in thenorth-west Midlands and north Wales. At the peak of the epidemic,

M.A.F.F. veterinarians diagnosed up to eighty new cases each day. Theslaughter tally and the cost of disease elimination were unprecedented. Inall, 450,000 livestock were killed, among them one-third of the cows inCheshire. Compensation cost 27 million, with total losses estimated atbetween 70 and 150 million.64

Although F.M.D. spread far more quickly and extensively than in the19512 epidemic, the worsening disease situation did not provoke thesame outcry against the slaughter policy. This was partly the result of animprovement in the F.M.D. situation, which seemed to vindicate the use

of slaughter. F.M.D. incidence had dropped during the later nineteen-fifties. Following a minor resurgence in 1960, it disappeared for nearlythree years, the longest period of national F.M.D.-freedom since thenineteen-hundreds.65 In addition, by 1967, commentators no longerexpected as they had in 1952 that vaccination would automaticallyreplace slaughter. Throughout the intervening years, M.A.F.F. had usedthe national press to reiterate its case against vaccination until, by forceof repetition, it reshaped public opinion. Paying little heed to recentscientific and technological advances, which had significantly reduced the

risks and costs of vaccination, officials and their supporters consistentlyportrayed it as an expensive and dangerous technology.66They maintainedthis stance when F.M.D. broke out in 1967: vaccination was a nationalcalamity, a last resort, a second line of defence or a fall back, whichwould ruin Britains role as a producer of disease-free livestock, and wastantamount to resigning our proud freedom from disease.67Consequently,there was little public or political support for this measure.

However, within M.A.F.F.s Animal Health Division (A.H.D.), vaccina-tion assumed unprecedented importance as the disease situation worsened.

Staff gradually lost faith in the capacity of slaughter to eliminate F.M.D.,and eventually drew up plans for ring vaccination within Cheshire andthe north-west Midlands.68 This was a momentous decision. Neverbefore, except under threat of biological attack, had M.A.F.F. concededa role to F.M.D. vaccines in Britain. When he heard the news, Dr. Noel

64 Animal Health Services Report, 1967 and 1968 (1968, 1969). For more information on the19678 epidemic, see H. Hughes and J. Jones, Plague on the Cheshire Plain(1969); R. Whitlock,The Great Cattle Plague: an Account of the Foot-and-Mouth Epidemic of 19678(1969).

65 Animal Health Services Report, 19615(19626).66 FMD notes, The Times, 17 Sept. 1956, p. 2; Slaughter control of FMD, The Times, 12

Dec. 1960, p. 5; Vaccination wrong for Britain, The Times, 3 Feb. 1961, p. 6; Disease threatto Europes farms, The Times, 17 July 1962, p. 10; F&M poses imports problem, The Times,21 Feb 1966, p. 6.

67 Examples drawn from Hansard, Parliamentary Debates, 5th ser., Commons, dccliii-dcclvi,passim; and Daily Telegraph, Daily Mail, Chester Chronicle, 20 Nov.23 Dec. 1967,passim.

68 T.N.A.: P.R.O., MAF 287/492, minutes of Northumberland committee, 5 June 1968.


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Mowat, a scientist based at Pirbright, told a colleague, We are living inhistory, the Ministry are going to vaccinate!69 However, in his publicannouncements, Minister of Agriculture Fred Peart played down the

move. He claimed that plans were purely a precaution, reaffirmed hisfaith in slaughter and denied rumours that vaccination was about tobegin.70

During the first week of December, M.A.F.F.s veterinary departmentpurchased several million doses of F.M.D. vaccine from abroad and drewup a detailed strategy for its application.71But at the same time, F.M.D.incidence began to fall and plans were abandoned. Once again, M.A.F.F.maintained its record of non-vaccination against F.M.D., but this time,official confidence in the slaughter policy had been severely shaken.

George Amos, M.A.F.F. regional controller for the north-west laternoted, I wonder whether the disease might have got away completely.Was it a damned near thing? What are the risks nowadays of an epidemicof a comparable or even larger scale happening again?72The Northumber-land committee of enquiry into the epidemic concluded that the riskswere high, since the intensification of farming offered new opportunitiesfor F.M.D. to spread more rapidly, and to infect more animals than everbefore. It therefore recommended that M.A.F.F. should devise contingencyplans for ring vaccination in all future outbreaks.73

M.A.F.F. immediately adopted this recommendation, although withoutenthusiasm. C.V.O. John Reid told a colleague,

I have no heart for being the CVO who first pressed the button to push FMDvaccine into British stock but against this I would not let my reluctance outweighmy judgment if circumstances arise which might light a fire that could not beput out without using every known defensive method of control. It would beirresponsible following our experience in 196768 not to use vaccine and to useit quickly if one saw a potentially dangerous situation.74

Memoranda subsequently drawn up by M.A.F.F.s A.H.D. stated that

vaccination should remain a reserve measure for use in emergencies, andthat it should be adopted only on the basis of veterinary advice, withoutreference to interest groups outside the ministry. The first-ever decisionto vaccinate would be an historic affair, with emotional undercurrents,

69 Wellcome Witnesses to 20th Century Medicine, xviii: Foot and Mouth Disease the 1967Outbreak and its Aftermath, ed. D. Christie, L. Reynolds and E. Tansey (2003), p. 52.

70 Farm plague battle is stepped up, Daily Mail, 27 Nov. 1967, p. 1; Peart written answerto parliamentary question, Hansard, 5, Commons, dcclv (28 Nov. 1967), cols. 701; Ministryhas no plans to vaccinate, Guardian, 3 Dec. 1967, p. 14.

71 T.N.A.: P.R.O., MAF 287/461, Memo: To RVOs, DVOs and DEOs concerned, Dec.1967; T.N.A.: P.R.O., MAF 287/479/1, F.M.D. area vaccination scheme, Dec. 1967.

72 T.N.A.: P.R.O., MAF 287/505/1, G. Amos, Personal views for oral hearing of theNorthumberland committee, 9 Apr. 1968.

73 Report of the Committee of Inquiry into FMD (Northumberland Committee): Part One [Cmd.3999], H.C. (19689), xxx. 867.

74 T.N.A.: P.R.O., MAF 287/479/1, Reid to Carnochan, 3 Oct. 1969.


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which could be the subject of controversy for at least a decade, and assuch it would tend to be of a political/technical character. Subsequentdecisions which, being based on actual experience and with the farming

and general public acclimatized, might well be taken with less difficulty(and perhaps more quickly) and might come to be viewed primarily as atechnical exercise.75

When consulted on these plans, most farming groups expressed firmresistance, having adopted over the years many of M.A.F.F.s own argumentsagainst vaccination. Various representatives argued that it would hinderlivestock exports, convey to the world that F.M.D. is endemic in GreatBritain and change the standing of this country which, in the past, wehave been proud to call the stud farm of the world. Moreover, for fear

of acquiring carriers of the F.M.D. virus, farmers would not want to buyvaccinated stock. M.A.F.F. reassured farmers that slaughter would remainits main policy, but pointed out that in order to avoid future criticism, ithad to consider vaccination. It added a clause to the 1970 AgriculturalBill to enable it to enforce vaccination where necessary, maintained avaccine bank of 1.5 million doses, and instituted staff training exercises.The bank remained in existence until 1985, when for cost reasons it wasreplaced with an international vaccine bank.76

This article has demonstrated that, while the traditional policy ofslaughtering F.M.D.-infected animals and their contacts survived intactthroughout the period 18921968, its application was on occasions highlyproblematic. Most members of the public were prepared to acceptslaughter when it appeared to be working, but its temporary failure tocontrol widespread epidemics, and the social, psychological and financialhardships which resulted, inspired legitimate criticism and calls for policychange. It is simplistic, therefore, to assume that the merits of slaughterwere self-evident. Rather, M.A.F.(F.) had to marshal considerable

resources in order to convince a doubtful public to support this policy: itemployed a characteristic brand of rhetoric which exaggerated thebenefits of slaughter and the deficiencies of alternative policies; itwithheld news of vaccine development from the public domain; and itrelied heavily upon the support of sympathetic farmers leaders.

M.A.F.(F.)s actions were inspired by the conviction that F.M.D. wasan extremely costly, dangerous disease which, for the sake of domesticagriculture and the international livestock trade, had to be eliminatedfrom Britain. The development of first serum and later vaccination failed

to dislodge its late-nineteenth-century belief that slaughter offered thecheapest and quickest route to national freedom from F.M.D. However,

75 T.N.A.: P.R.O., MAF 287/479/2, FMD ring vaccination contingency plan, Oct. 1969.76 T.N.A.: P.R.O., MAF 287/479/1, 2, correspondence and memoranda, 196970; Christie,

Reynolds and Tansey, pp. 678.


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decided despite the opposition of several members that slaughter wasthe more economic method of F.M.D. control. Prospective E.U. membersshould therefore stop vaccinating and prohibit the importation of vaccinated

livestock. Although ring vaccination would remain an option duringdisease outbreaks, nations wishing to take this step would have to applyfor E.U. permission. The international animal disease control body, theOffice Internationale Epizooties (O.I.E.), then established new tradebarriers against vaccinating nations, which forced countries wishing toexport to the E.U. to follow suit and pursue national F.M.D.-freedom bymeans of slaughter.78 In this manner, M.A.F.F.s long standing F.M.D.control policy became fixed in international law, served to expand theF.M.D.-free bloc of countries, and reoriented international trading

patterns to the detriment of vaccinating nations.Towards the end of the nineteen-nineties, international F.M.D. experts

began to warn of the likely reappearance of F.M.D. in Europe. Y.Leforban of the E.U.F.M.D. advised governments to plan for the worstcase scenario and to prepare contingency plans for vaccination.79 InMarch 1999, the European Commissions scientific committee on animalhealth and animal welfare issued a Strategy for emergency vaccinationagainst F.M.D., which portrayed vaccination as an increasingly viablesupplement to F.M.D. control by slaughter.80M.A.F.F., however, did not

update its 1993 contingency plan, which envisaged a worse case scenarioof ten outbreaks, to be tackled by slaughter alone.81Its ongoing failure toreview and adjust existing policy in the light of thirty-five years of social,economic, agricultural and scientific change meant that when F.M.D.reappeared in February 2001, M.A.F.F. no longer possessed a rational,workable method of controlling the disease. Moreover, officials werewholly unprepared for F.M.D. They had lost their former familiarity withthe traditional control policy and no longer recognized its limitations.They simply assumed that because slaughter had worked before, so it

would again; instead of learning from history, they repeated it.The consequences for the nation were devastating. By the time

M.A.F.F. learned of the presence of F.M.D., in February 2001, infectionhad already spread far and wide as a result of frequent, extensive livestockmovements. F.M.D.-free nations immediately banned imports of British

78 W. H. Rees, Foot and mouth disease: its control and eradication, the European story(unpublished MS., date unknown); Report from the Commission on the Control of FMD(Brussels,1989); OIE official disease-free status (5 March

2004); Europe awaits crucial findings, Guardian, 1 March 2001, p. 8.79 Y. Leborban, Prevention measures against FMD in Europe in recent years, Vaccine, xvii

(1999), 17589.80 Report of the Scientific Committee on Animal Health and Animal Welfare, Strategy for Emergency

Vaccination against Foot and Mouth Disease(1999) (5 March 2004).

81 Anderson, pp. 324.


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meat and livestock exports, and under M.A.F.F.s instructions, alllivestock movements in Britain ceased. Veterinary staff began to trace thespread of disease and stamp out outbreaks, while spokesmen assured the

public that the disease was under control. However, to those sufferingfear and flames on the farms,82 M.A.F.F.s efforts were clearly failing.F.M.D. invaded Ireland, France and the Netherlands (which employedF.M.D. vaccination), and ran riot in Dumfries and Galloway, Cumbriaand Devon. As disease notifications flooded in, M.A.F.F.s resourcesbecame increasingly stretched. Infected animals remained alive for daysbefore slaughter, and piles of rotting carcasses littered farms, awaitingcremation. The prime minister postponed the general election; smokefrom funeral pyres filled the countryside; and many businesses ground to

a halt as the public followed M.A.F.F.s strict instructions to keep awayfrom rural areas. Media reporting of the situation escalated, and criticismsof M.A.F.F.s actions grew alongside disease incidence.

Mid-epidemic, M.A.F.F. was replaced by the Department for theEnvironment, Food and Rural Affairs (D.E.F.R.A.). As the crisis deepened,this body began to consider F.M.D. vaccination. However, 100 years ofhistory, the enshrinement of slaughter in international law and the lobbyingpower of farmers groups (who had the most to lose, financially, byvaccination) all impeded policy change. When groups of epidemiologists

with little or no experience of F.M.D. suggested a firebreak cull of alllivestock within three kilometres of an infected farm, proposals tovaccinate fell by the wayside. In the months that followed, animals diedin their millions. A minority had contracted F.M.D.; some were culledbecause they displayed symptoms that bore a passing resemblance toF.M.D.; but the vast majority were healthy, and died by dint of theirgeography. In total, 2,026 F.M.D. outbreaks were recorded in 2001,compared to 2,228 in 19678, yet the death toll exceeded twenty-foldthat of the earlier epidemic.83 Nevertheless, the principle of slaughter

survived intact, and Britain maintained its record of never havingvaccinated against F.M.D.

The future, however, is uncertain. The various enquiries into the 2001epidemic all concluded that while national F.M.D.-freedom wasdesirable, the benefits of controlling F.M.D. by slaughter alone were faroutweighed by its social, psychological and economic costs. Theytherefore recommended that vaccination play a considerable role in thecontrol of future outbreaks.84In reflection of this new state of affairs, theO.I.E. relaxed its trading penalties upon vaccinating nations. However,

D.E.F.R.A.s 2003 contingency plan contained no detailed plans foremergency vaccination, and maintained intensive culling as a control

82 Daily Telegraph, 26 Feb. 2001, p. 1.83 Anderson,passim.84 See above, n. 3.


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option.85Consequently, it is difficult to gauge the extent to which policyhas changed as a result of the 2001 epidemic. Only when F.M.D. returnswill this matter become clear. Will D.E.F.R.A. finally turn to F.M.D.

vaccination? Or will it insist upon the authority of a century-old slaughterpolicy?

85 Department of the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, Foot and Mouth DiseaseContingency Plan (2003) (5 March 2004); National Foot and Mouth Group, Response to DEFRAs contingency plan(2003) (5 March 2004)

85 D.Campbell and R. Lee, The power to panic: the Animal Health Act 2002, Public Law,(2003), 38296, at p. 383.

Documents

HIS ‘Flames and fear on the farms’ controlling foot